Month: March 2013

As I tap this article on my iPad going to lunch, I think, “There is too much to do in this hour! There is no way I can get it all done. It’s Saturday, and that means that most business calls will now have to wait until Monday. There is never enough time. With my cell phone glued to my hand, head phones on, special high tech gloves made to protect me from the cold while still allowing me to dial, text and e-mail so I can multi task on the run, I race to get it done. The technologies that were supposed to make us more efficient have enslaved us and forever changed the way we live. While on my phone I read an e-mail from my mother. “Cherie, Last night I was at a benefit seated at a table with nine men. Not a single man spoke to me – nor to each other – the whole night they were on their cell phones. The end of civilization!” This is why when American women go on vacation abroad they feel back in tune with their womanhood, they feel sexy and appreciated. Here, you can be pregnant to the teeth carrying packages and still not get a seat on the train. Within a week of returning from their trip, the glow is gone. When I hear men in New York complaining about women of a certain age being bitter, I reflect on this bad behavior and think, “Well gentlemen, that’s why! They feel invisible, and under appreciated.” Not only is it incredibly rude to sit at any table with other people on your phone the whole time, it can also be insulting. My mother who is a glamorous, sophisticated, and alluring older woman (a French Sophia Loren) was scandalized not just by the lack of manners but by being made to feel uncomfortable with all those men that could not lift their eyes away from their screen. Polite dinner conversation does not exist anymore. What a shame! Every time a new technology is introduced there is always some lag time for the etiquette around the technology to emerge. We have had phones in our pockets for years now, yet ignore the protocol as they become more and more of an affixed appendage. These technologies that were invented to help us be more productive, have in reality changed the speed at which we are expected to live and work. There is no turning back. As each day becomes a greater challenge to function at fiber optic speed, in the totality of what is now an integral part of our existence, e-mail, scheduling, texts, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Four Square, Instagram and countless other portholes, it strikes me that perhaps technology has finally developed faster than we have biologically evolved to function at this pace. So attached are we to the gadget in our hand, in our compulsive efforts to keep up with all that it demands of us, we no longer can come up for air long enough to engage with the person sitting across from us at a table. What does this imply for us as a species? Will evolution demand that we evolve into beings that do not require human contact? Will microchips be implanted into our brains so we can keep up instead of keeling over? Clearly, this is the beginning of the end of civilization as we know it because we have ceased to be civilized. Hopefully a new way of being will emerge from the present chaos. Either the novelty of keeping up with cyber space will subside and we will achieve better balance in our lives or we will mutate and evolve into beings better suited to the current tempo we live by.

Here’s your Jackson family lesson of the day: Tanay Jackson, the niece of the lateMichael Jackson, is pursuing a music career!

Tanay, who began talking to her father, Michael’s older brother Tito, when she was in her teens, is following in the family business. Not only has she rerecorded the classic ’80s hit “Naughty Girls (Need Love Too!),” she’s working on a new single, “In the Spotlight” (seems like an appropriate title!)